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John Kelly to remain Trump’s chief of staff until 2020

Aug 03 2018

Two White House officials said Tuesday that Kelly told senior administration staff that he has accepted the president's request to remain on as chief of staff through 2020.

Kelly, who took over for former chief of staff Reince Priebus last summer, has implemented some measure of structure to the White House, though the president has continued to tweet and act largely as he sees fit.

The news that Kelly intends to stay on at the helm of the administration for the long haul comes just a day after Kelly passed the one year mark in the job as the president's second chief of staff.

The news came after Kelly marked his first anniversary as chief of staff amid a swirl of rumors about his potentially imminent departure.

But Trump has made a decision to stick with Kelly - for now, at least.

The news - first reported by the The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday - comes after a few months of improved relations between Kelly and Trump, who has by most accounts resisted the more disciplined approach his top aide meant to impose in the West Wing.

The president later mentioned his top aide's service on Twitter with a photo of the two men smiling and standing side by side.

Kelly, for his part, had grown increasingly frustrated in the role over the past year, furious at what he felt was unfair press coverage - particularly about his role in the scandal surrounding former Staff Secretary Rob Porter - while frequently butting heads with the president.

But his standing in the White House has been somewhat diminished in recent months.

Kelly did manage to cut off "meeting crashers", uninvited West Wing aides who used to show up to meetings, Politico reported, but he has not been able to control the president's habit of using his favorite network, Fox News, to dictate his agenda. But he added: "Look, at some point, things happen but I will tell you. we have a very good relationship".